Source and Message Framing Considerations for Recruiting Mature Adults as Organ Donors Through Direct Mail Campaigns

Context: Mature adults represent an important audience segment for organ donation practitioners. Despite their potential impact as organ donors, compared to other age demographics, their registration rates are much lower. Objective: The objective of the current campaign was to determine the most effective source and message strategy to promote organ and tissue donation among mature adults. Methods: A 2 (states: Illinois and Iowa) by 2 (sources: government agency and organ procurement organization [OPO]) by 3 (taglines: Any age is the right age to share the gift of life, Don’t rule yourself out, and Don’t rule yourself out: Any age is the right age to share the gift of life) between-subjects design was used to test the effectiveness of direct mailings promoting organ donation to mature adults. Results: Across both Illinois and Iowa, the results revealed that greater organ donation registration rates emerged following exposure to direct mail authored by a state official such as the Illinois Secretary of State or the Iowa Department of Public Health compared to local OPOs. Conclusions: Overall, the findings speak to the effectiveness of direct mail marketing campaign’s ability to register potential organ donors. Moreover, the results reveal that it is more important who sends the message as opposed to what the message states.